Looking forward to another fight with your toddler over what they'll eat for dinner? Take heart - the fight is worth it for your child’s smarts down the line.

Being overweight or obese during pregnancy can put women at a higher risk for gestational diabetes, which increases the risk of birth complications.

Being obese and pregnant can carry a range of risks to the mother during pregnancy, but it also has consequences for her baby, in the short-term and the long-term.

Shedding pounds before getting pregnant can reduce a number of health risks - but it may also add a few points to your child's reading and math scores. A recent study has found a link between a mother's weight before pregnancy and their children's cognitive skills: obese women's children score lower on math and reading tests when they were 5 to 7 years old. Get to a healthy weight before becoming pregnant. Lead author Rika Tanda , a nursing doctoral candidate at Ohio State University, and colleagues wanted to investigate potential connections between a mother's pre-pregnancy ob...

Adding folic acid to tortillas and other products can reduce the risk for birth defects, says a new petition recently filed with a federal agency.  A petition filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) argues that fortifying corn masa flour products with the B vitamin folic acid can help reduce serious birth defects of the brain and spine. The groups behind the petition believe that mandating folic acid fortification of the products will especially help prevent birth defects in one high-risk group: Hispanic babies. Since 1998, when the FDA started regulating folic a...

If money is always low and stress or depression is always high, moms may be overfeeding their babies - and thereby increasing their kids' risks of obesity. A recent unpublished study being presented at a conference found that the unhealthy practice of adding cereal to babies' bottles tends to occur more often among low-income mothers who are single and/or showing symptoms of depression or high stress. Don't add cereal to your baby's bottle. Lead author Candice Taylor Lucas, MD, a an associate professor of pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital...

It may not just be chicken nuggets and french fries adding too much weight to children's waistlines. The very air pregnant women breathe might play a small role too.

Probiotics are food with live and active beneficial bacteria for the body that have been gaining popularity in the U.S. - and soon they may be in baby's formula.

Children born to women with diabetes are more likely to be obese, but one way moms can reduce this risk is to breastfeed their babies. And the pattern is true for non-diabetics too.